THE PRESIDENT UNDER FIRE: THE DEFENDERS

THE PRESIDENT UNDER FIRE: THE DEFENDERS; Clinton's Rapid-Response Squad Now Moves in Slow Motion

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: January 24, 1998

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23—
When Bill Clinton was running for President in 1992 and faced accusations of a 12-year extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, his aides corralled reporters to declare that Ms. Flowers was lying and had been paid by trashy tabloids.

His loyalists evolved into a legendary ''rapid response'' team to advance Mr. Clinton's case with each tick of the news cycle. The team has since been widely emulated but its effectiveness rarely equaled.

Now, with Mr. Clinton facing the biggest personal crisis of his Presidency, the old team is on the sidelines. Many of them have left Mr. Clinton's employ.

With the President's lawyers in control, hardly any other Democrats have stepped into the breach. Even Vice President Al Gore has commented on the situation only in a meeting in his office with a handful of newspaper columnists -- and no television cameras.

Oddly, some of the rapid-response team seem to be making things worse for their old boss..

George Stephanopoulos, a main campaign aide in 1992 and Mr. Clinton's senior adviser until after the 1996 election, was among the first to use the word ''impeachment'' over the allegations that Mr. Clinton was sexually involved with a 21-year-old intern and conspired to have her lie about it. Mr. Stephanopoulos now is a political analyst for ABC News.

Dee Dee Myers, Mr. Clinton's former press secretary and now an editor at Vanity Fair, said on NBC's ''Today'' show, ''If he's not telling the truth, I think the consequences will be astronomical.''

After five years of Washington political battles, the President has alienated many in his own party, particularly in Congress. And he has sent enough signals over the years so that some people find the charges against him at least plausible.

Jim Ruvolo, the former Democratic chairman in Ohio and now a political consultant, said people are outlining two scenarios: ''If it's untrue, it's outrageous he has to put up with these charges, that this only gets worse and why would any good person get into this business? Others say if it's true, it's the death knell of his Presidency.''

Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee and now a candidate for the Senate from New York, first told a New York One television interviewer that she thought the allegations, if true, constituted an impeachable offense.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat and longtime Clinton supporter, spoke to reporters in a break in a hearing on Capitol Hill, saying, ''If it's true, I think the President is in deep trouble.''

In New Hampshire, Amanda Merrill, a Democrat and deputy minority leader in the state House, said: ''We're not happy about it.'' She added: ''This is not the sort of thing to have eating up people's time.''

To be sure, there have been some gestures of support.

Mr. Gore gave a measured statement. ''The President has denied the charges, and I believe it,'' he said.

And today, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which would conduct any impeachment hearings, volunteered a statement. Without defending the President, he questioned the evidence against him, saying the tapes could have been illegally recorded and might not be admissible as evidence.

Reporters for MSNBC caught up with Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of Manhattan, today in Cuba. Rather than insist on the President's innocence, Mr. Rangel attacked the credibility of Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel investigating the charges. But, he added: ''If indeed the President was guilty of obstruction of justice, I really would think that the word 'impeachment' would be one of the words to be used.''

One measure of the lack of big guns to defend the President was the appearance on CNN today of a relatively unknown Democratic consultant, Jennifer Laszlo, as the counterpoint to Frank Luntz, a prominent Republican consultant and pollster. As Ms. Laszlo tried to change the subject to the healthy economy, Mr. Luntz gave her a backhanded compliment. ''They're having a tough time in having the Democrats come forward,'' he said, ''and there aren't many Democrats as loyal as you.''

But Mr. Luntz himself had sent a memo to all Republican members of Congress telling them to keep mum on the subject. ''The facts will speak far louder than any of your voices,'' he wrote. ''If you comment, you will take a non-partisan, non-political situation and make it both partisan and political.

''Do not speculate. Do not hypothesize. Too many Americans justify the President's behavior because they dislike his accusers. Please don't add to that justification.''

Charter members of Mr. Clinton's rapid-response team have been subdued in their limited appearances on television.

James Carville was perhaps the most vociferous of Mr. Clinton's defenders, screaming at reporters in 1992 for even bringing up Ms. Flowers and, as recently as Sunday, going on ''Meet The Press'' as part of his long campaign to discredit Paula Corbin Jones, who has accused Mr. Clinton of making crude sexual advances toward her.

This week Mr. Carville said on ''Larry King Live'' that the drill could get wearying.

''Having gone through the same thing any number of times, particularly during the campaign, they're more tired that anything,'' he said of White House aides. ''Tired in terms of just dealing with it.''

Another member of the rapid-response team was Mandy Grunwald, a media adviser in 1992 who made her name by aggressively challenging the legitimacy of Ted Koppel's ''Nightline'' report on Ms. Flowers.

But on ''Larry King Live'' Ms. Grunwald was more cautious Thursday night: ''This is one of the really hard times when the best P.R. advice is not always the best legal advice.''

Chart: ''Who's Who: Players in the White House Crisis'' Principal figures in the furor surrounding President Clinton and the allegations that he had an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky when she was a 21-year-old intern at the White House in 1996 and then urged her to lie about it. VERNON E. JORDAN JR. LONGTIME CLINTON CONFIDANT HELPED MS. LEWINSKY FIND A NEW JOB Said on Thursday that he had helped Ms. Lewinsky find a lawyer and a new job. But he denied asking her to lie, and said she told him she had not had an affair with the President. MONICA S. LEWINSKY The 24-year-old former White House intern who is reported to have told her confidante Linda R. Tripp that she had had an affair with the President and that he and Mr. Jordan told her to lie about it. In a deposition in the Paula Jones case, Ms. Lewinsky denied those allegations. LINDA R. TRIPP MS. TRIPP RECORDED CONVERSATIONS GAVE TAPES TO MR. STARR GAVE TAPES TO MS. GOLDBERG A former White House and Pentagon secretary who claims to have taped 20 hours of conversations with Ms. Lewinsky. Ms. Tripp said last summer that she had seen Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, emerge disheveled from the Oval Office claiming to have been kissed and fondled by Mr. Clinton. PRESIDENT CLINTON Denies that there was an affair and says, ''I did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth.'' ROBERT S. BENNETT MR. CLINTON'S LAWYER Was at the President's side last Saturday for his six-hour deposition in the Paula Jones case. Last summer, he said Linda R. Tripp was ''not to be believed'' after she asserted that Mr. Clinton had kissed and ''fondled'' a female volunteer in the White House. KENNETH W. STARR Whitewater independent counsel. Last week, Attorney General Janet Reno and a special panel of judges allowed him to investigate possible false statements in the Paula Jones case. LUCIANNE S. GOLDBERG Literary agent with ties to Regnery, a conservative publishing house. Ms. Tripp gave her tapes of conversations with Ms. Lewinsky. Clinton's Accusers PAULA CORBIN JONES A former Arkansas state employee who accuses Mr. Clinton of propositioning her for oral sex in a hotel room in 1991, when he was Governor. GENNIFER FLOWERS In the 1992 Presidential campaign, she claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas. The candidate denied it. But last week, according to The Washington Post, he acknowledged such an affair in his deposition in the Paula Jones case. On the White House Staff BETTY CURRIE The President's personal secretary, she referred Ms. Lewinsky to Mr. Jordan and Bill Richardson, chief delegate to the United Nations, for possible jobs. EVELYN LIEBERMAN Former deputy chief of staff at the White House, she closely supervised the interns. After she complained that Ms. Lewinsky was spending too much time at Presidential appearances, Ms. Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon.